Rock-music time moves so much more rapidly in the hyper-speed Internet age.

It can breed "half-hour" viral prominence. Not just that old-fashioned "overnight sensation" stuff. Now, taking even a nine-month hiatus can seem more like an eternity.

So, Michael Jagmin and the guys in Lodi-based A Skylit Drive are just a little uncertain. Not inordinately, though.

"Rise," the hard-rock band's perseveringly named fourth full-length CD, was released Tuesday. "Identity on Fire" came out in 2011. A Skylit Drive has been off the road since December and now is down to five members.

"It's not a full-on hiatus," said Jagmin, 28, the band's high-wire singer, oldest member and only non-Northern Californian. "But we disappeared from the tour circuit for most of half a year.

"That kind of time hurts any band. Some people kind of forget. With an album like this, though, anyone who used to pay attention once again will pay attention."

That's because Jagmin and guitarist Nick Miller were more focused and centered while writing the songs - though creating them via email from different cities - and enlisted high-end skill while recording, producing, engineering and mastering "Rise."

"He's like a business standard," Jagmin said of Cameron Mizell, who amped-up the recording's sound at his Chango Studios in Lake Mary, Fla. "Kids are always becoming bigger critics. He's one of the best of the best in our music niche. He's good at really bringing ideas to life and making it sound as lively as possible.

That's what 25-year-old Lodi High School graduates Miller, Kyle Simmons (keyboards), Brian White (bass) and Cory La Quay, a drummer and singer from Elk Grove, have been doing since the band was formed in 2005. Jagmin, originally from Dallas, Texas, joined in 2008. Guitarist Joey Wilson, 25, also a Lodi High grad, left the group last year.

The band began its monthlong U.S. tour last Friday in Sacramento and follows it with a 10-show trip to Australia.

" 'Rise' has an overlying tone of rising above things," Jagmin said from Austin, Texas, where he now lives. "Coming back from being knocked down. Never staying down. A little bit of that's at work on the album. This is our rise. Our chance to really take things back."

Jagmin, who's lived briefly in Lodi and Sacramento, couldn't do that during a 2012 divorce, which impacted lyrics he wrote for "Rise." He'd been living in Marina del Rey (Los Angeles County) and Riverside.

"It was big and nasty," Jagmin said. "The best thing to do was just get away from a toxic relationship. I have family in Texas. Actually, I got a handful - a lot of things - off my chest due to all of that.

"Meeting someone (his new girlfriend) who has the same views on life, the same goals and aspirations and supports what I do was really important."

Miller, in Lodi, crafted the songs' instrumentals while Jagmin, in Southern California and Austin, wrote the lyrics - exchanging ideas and critiques by email. That enabled the group to start recording with an overall theme and vision already formulated.

"I think it resonates as the most honestly written (album)," Jagmin said. "We've always written in a big group. The songs were just a mish-mash. This guy's idea. That guy's idea. This was more like a centralized hub.

"More straight-forward to the point of the vision. We never really had gone in before with a kind of closed-off plan."

During its hiatus, Jagmin and the band weren't totally dormant - performing a few times in Los Angeles, staying visible on their YouTube channel and doing a one-off show on April 27 in Quezon City, the Philippines.

Rising up to full on-stage speed isn't an issue.

"Like we always do, there's a lot of preparation for every tour," Jagmin said. "Mostly, though, we're just kind of going for it. Even if you practice some stage moves, it's different once you're on stage. A lot of it's just muscle memory.

"The Philippines was just a random show. After five months, we just, like, clicked right back into it."

Susan Tedeschi and Butch Trucks are coming back. That's not revolutionary. Just a rarity for Stockton.